Is Sandra Tsing Loh right, does marriage stink?

Sandra Tsing Loh says that only 10% of marriages, at most, are happy. This revelation came in the wake of Loh's recent affair that lead to her even more recent divorce. James Rainey interviewed the writer/performance artist for a column that was published today. An excerpt:

Loh admits she had an affair and that she and her husband are divorcing after some two decades together, in the lengthy disquisition featured in the July-August edition of the Atlantic.

What's more, she urges the rest of us to "avoid marriage -- or you too may suffer the emotional pain, the humiliation, and the logistical difficulty, not to mention the expense, of breaking up a long-term union at midlife for something as demonstrably fleeting as love."

I suspect I will not be the only Loh fan dismayed by a piece of work that simultaneously goes too far -- letting the "flaming jet fuselage" of her own wrecked relationship cloud all marriage -- and not far enough -- failing to address any of the specific details that sent her partnership into a tailspin.

The result is a piece that's thoroughly provocative and strangely bloodless, the anti-marriage burden of proof foisted on a few didactic authors and the anonymous tales of a pair of Loh's unhappy, sex-starved friends.

So is Loh right? Is marriage outdated? Or does it still have a chance in this modern world?

-- Tony Pierce